I would much rather write about video games than try and make them, but every so often I do have an idea I think it would be fun to develop. One of my most recent and exciting game ideas was for a project called “Rogue Cops.” In this game, players would control two procedurally generated cliche buddy cops, managing their randomly assigned traits like “loose cannon,” “too old for this shit,” or “robot” to take on classic cop scenarios like city patrols or hostage crises. I think it’s a legitimately fun idea and on a lark I nearly pitched it to Hideo Kojima at Tribeca Games Festival.

“Rogue Cops” will probably never get made, but after playing story-driven cop management sim This is the Police from Weappy Studio, I almost don’t care any more. Even if it’s not connected to your personal in-joke, this Switch Game That Isn’t Zelda (and is on other platforms) is an intriguing attempt at gamifying one of the most high-stakes, dense, morally complex professions of our time.

This is the Police opens with Jon St. John talking about strippers shaking it, but this isn’t a Duke Nukem game. Instead, the iconic gaming voice actor portrays aging Freeburg police chief Jack Boyd. It’s a great performance, full of weary old everyman gravitas, a far cry for action hero parodies. And St. John does a fantastic job giving life to a character portrayed via stylish but muted and minimal angular expressionless illustrations.

It’s a good thing St. John’s work is so strong here because you’ll be hearing his voice a lot. Much of This is the Police is an almost Twine-style adventure game where players guide Jack through his typical routines. Put up with the mayor. Put up with the mob. Put up with other cops Put up with the press. Put up with your missing wife’s mom. Put up with your own personal problems in therapy. It’s through these vignettes where players learn more about Boyd’s overarching goal, to earn a half of million dollars through police work (legal or otherwise) before he is forced to retire 180 days.

However, where players make actual progress toward reaching that goal is through This is the Police’s other set of gameplay mechanics: a simulation of actually making decisions as chief of police. You’re presented with a map of the city as well as a selection of diverse cops for that shift. As the day goes by in real-time, crimes pop up and you must respond by sending the officers you deem worthy. Watch how things play out, deal with the unforeseen consequences, end the day, put on a new smooth jazz album, and do it all over again.

This is the Police’s gameplay depth comes from the sheer amount of factors you have to consider when making these decisions. Different cops have different levels of professionalism, with higher-level cops being more effective. Cops also earn points after successfully completing a task or when you manually promote them. So you’ll want to do things like pairing rookies cops with veterans on tough cases or send freshly hired recruits down to guard a movie theater in a safe part of town to free up better cops for more pressing issues.

Situations can always go south, though. Missions may randomly force you to give direct orders to your cops like “taser the fleeing suspect” or “jump out of the window.” Make the wrong choice and your best cop may get killed in action, and it’s as gutting as losing a key named unit in X-COM. When you get updates on an officer’s funeral, you can’t help but see them as people instead of a collection of stats. You also may lose cops for less dramatic reasons. Sometimes cops may quit if you don’t give them enough time off. Other times they’ll just be so incompetent you need to fire them and come up with an excuse later. It’s a satisfying headache.

But there all these other factors, too. If you send cops to farther part of town, it will take longer for them to become available again. You only have a few seconds to respond to a crime so timing really matters. That’s why you may not want to send all the cops you can to an event, but fewer reinforcements increase the risks. Also increasing the risks are various outlandish requests from the mayor and from the mob, requests like ignoring deadly casino shootouts, firing all Black cops, or sending a SWAT team to a peaceful feminist protest. But if you refuse to cooperate you’ll lose out on perks like extra cash or extra cops.

There’s even this whole investigation sub-system where you deploy detectives and rearrange their clues to solve crime narratives. Later, you can turn suspects into informants to infiltrate gangs and arrest their leaders. At least this mode freezes time so it doesn’t distract you from normal demanding police work.

This is the Police deeply satisfies my strategic brain with its constant tough choices, and the way it kind of forces players to grapple with systemic police issues in moment-to-moment gameplay fascinates my political brain. When you’re making life-or-death snap decisions, it’s tempting to fall back on harmful unethical biases, but that’s still not excusable.

But the result of all this thinking means that even a single relatively brief in-game day of play, a session I can easily knock out on the go on Switch during my brief commute, can still be mentally exhausting. So the idea of going through 180 days of policing to see the end of the story sounds a little too daunting. Beating the game also unlocks as endless mode since much of the game is already randomly generated. And I think I would’ve preferred to see an endless mode available from the start alongside a tighter campaign.

I’ll save you my… complicated opinions about cops in the troubled real world. But controlling the video game cops of This is the Police ended being more nuanced, thoughtful, and ultimately enjoyable than I would’ve expected. It’s taxing and repetitive, but that feels purposeful, a way to convey a feeling through gameplay instead of just the prominent story sections. Plus, it lets the man behind Duke Nukem be a real, sad, actor. How cool is that?